Every year at Christmastime, in our office, we get shipments of various kinds of goodies from partners, vendors or other business folk who want to stay in our good graces. You know what it looks like: the ginormous 5 gallon bucket of 3 flavor popcorn, or the basket of trail mix, and even selections of delectable chocolates and nuts. I don’t know what happened this last year, but it was an off year. I’m thinking it’s because 2007 is a prime number. Anyway, about half of the bounty was rather, uh, unpalatable. This is measured, of course, by what goes first … and what’s still there on January 15th.
One attractive basket contained ‘food items’ from an earthy bakery – scones that really needed a beverage to go with them, muffins that weighed about 3 lbs. and some sort of Galaxy Brownies in suspicious boxes. I think those got moldy before they got rejected. Taffy was a late hanger-on, and hard candies are a hard sell, but they go well in the dish out front for unsuspecting visitors to the office.
As I peer out my office door, I can see 5 little matching boxes stacked pyramid style still remaining on the big table. This is what’s left of the Christmas Bounty. They bring to mind the poor little kid who is the last picked in P.E. class for whatever game is being played that day. The scrawny, unpopular one with glasses; I know, I was one. However I wasn’t dressed up in pretty paper, matching the other unwanted, scrawny kids. These boxes – we can’t decide if they are candy or fruit – contain "Aplets" and "Cotlets". They are gelatinous, chewy, chocolate covered or sugar covered, masses of Apple or Apricot gooey gel. They are the unwanted, unpopular, spectacled kids in P.E. class. The game is done, we’ve moved on, and they’re still sitting on the sidelines hoping for acceptance. I am not mean to candy, so I won’t be throwing them out. However, I know our office mom will swoop in one day and they’ll be gone, cute little boxes and all. I’ve seen her eye them the last couple days, and even linger once or twice, pondering.
I feel for the little guys. They’ll never be in the Chocolate League.